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  • Essay / Macbeth by William Shakespeare - 1087

    In human society, there are different systems of rank and class that distinguish groups of people. Ambition – the quest for power – is an internal motivation rooted in each of us. This motivates us to improve. Ambition can lead to corruption, such as in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, where the main character Macbeth is driven by his ambition and eventually becomes corrupt. Macbeth chooses to let ambition take precedence over his humanity in order to attain and retain the throne which will ultimately lead to his and Scotland's downfall. Initially, Macbeth is a loyal and courageous subject of the King of Scotland, but he is also a man who harbors a hidden ambition for power. In a military camp near the king's palace at Forres, a wounded captain describes to King Duncan of Scotland how "brave Macbeth" plunged fearlessly into the Scottish civil war while "Disdaining Fortune" (1.2.16- 17) killed the traitor Macdonwald, rebel. leader of the Irish invaders. The captain's report of Macbeth's bravery and loyalty in battle is immediately contradicted by Macbeth's obvious fixation on the witches' prophecy revealing his great ambition. After hearing the witches' prophecy that he would become king, "Macbeth comes to view the witches' promise of the crown in light of a contract with destiny" (Cohen), Banquo observed him "beginning" as someone 'one who "seem[s] to 'fear/Of things that seem so right' (1.3.49-50). It is the “reaction of a guilty man who has heard his secret thoughts divined and expressed.” (Cohen) “Thus, the Weird Sisters are not actual arbiters of fate, but simply evil spirits whose function is to sow seeds of temptation in the souls of people already prone to sin and despair. » (Cohen). Macbeth becomes Thane of Caw... middle of paper ... his wife's advice in murdering Duncan knew the risks he was taking and ended up being the cause of his own demise. Cited Cohen, Joshua. ““This great bond that makes me pale”: Macbeth’s contract with destiny. » Shakespeare Newsletter Fall 2010: 61+, Literary Resource Center, April 7, 2014. " Claremont Review of Books Winter 2007: 27+. Literature Resource Center. Web. April 7, 2014. McGrail, Mary Ann. " Macbeth: What Does the tyrant? " In The Tyranny of Shakespeare. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001. 19-46. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism Ed. Michelle Lee Vol. 100. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literary Resource Center. Shakespeare, William. British Literature Ed. Janet Allen et al Evanston: Holt McDougal-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt., 2010. 348-431..